Much of the recent observation and recent research has been based on relatively short-term observations in States which raised the legal drinking age, but changes in behaviors observed in immediate postchange periods-and there is a lot of literature on thatare not particularly reliable indicators of the differences affected by long-term different, formal social policies, especially those which apply to widespread, historic social behaviors.

Now, to find out what long-term effects one can anticipate from the higher legal drinking age over time, we will take a look at some 116 studies, not all at once. In my written testimony you will find excerpts and references to 116 different studies of adolescent and adult drinking patterns and behavior conducted by scientists in the world's most respected institutions of higher learning-medical, behavioral and social research. And their findings are amazingly consistent and consistently at odds with the popular notion that a higher legal drinking age can reduce alcohol abuse and alcoholrelated crashes among those affected.

As the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism said in its third annual report to Congress and has just been repeated in a multimillion-dollar research Triangle Institute study that has just been made available: "Where alcohol is readily available to older adults, it is not difficult for underage drinkers to obtain."

And here I would like to point out that according to the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research's most recent study of alcohol and drug use among high school seniors, marijuana is used on a daily basis by 10.2 percent of all the high school seniors in the United States, and alcohol is used by less than 6.9 percent on a daily basis.

If we cannot control availability of marihuana, which is totally prohibited, how can we prohibit availability of alcohol which is available virtually everywhere? And the futility of attempting to reduce availability and consumption by raising the age is clearly demonstrated by the fact that in four Midwestern States-my neighbors Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois-alcoholic beverage sales and revenues did not go down when the drinking age went up but continued to increase despite the reduction in the number of legal drinkers, most of whom, according again to Gallup, et cetera, drink more and more often than older adults.

In the 1980 study "Minimum Drinking Age Laws," Richard Bonnie reported a 5 to 15 percent shift in perception of the ease of availability during the immediate postchange period among those under the new legal drinking age; 85 to 95 percent continued to drink as much and as often as before.

But as the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism also reported to Congress, for which you paid a good deal of money, where young people are denied the legal opportunity to drink and consume alcoholic beverages in supervised settings, they do so illegally in unsupervised, often remote settings where they tend to drink more, drive more and get into more trouble than those who drink legally under supervision of the same age.

The World Health Organization also issued identical findings 4 years ago after studying all of the industrialized nations of the world. Proof of that fact is found in analysis of data for 22 States which retained different legal drinking ages for beer during the 5

year period 1970 to 1975 which reveal what Philip Cook of Duke University termed "surprising results."

Fatal crash rates for 18- to 20-year-old drivers were actually 8 percent higher where the legal drinking age was 21 than where it remained 18 during that period of time. Further analysis, however, revealed that this 8 percent is not statistically significant. Indeed, the test confirmed the null hypothesis; that is, one can conclude from these data and also the earlier National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study of 1974 that higher and local legal drinking ages do not effect differences in fatal highway crashes among 18- to 20-year-old drivers in the long term.

Finally, it should be pointed out and it should be pointed out by everyone who cites the Insurance Institute study, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration studies or the Highway Safety Research Institute studies that none of those studies, including those done by Douglas at the Highway Safety Research Institute, found any significant change in highway crash involvement among 17- and 16-year-old drivers attributable to lowering or raising the legal drinking age.

I did not make those studies up, and the cites are here, and you can look at them. In other words, the trickle-down theory somehow does not trickle down.

Scientific observations of short-term effects of raising the age and the long-term effects of higher legal drinking ages over time are sufficient, indeed, I agree; and they are sufficiently clear. Higher legal drinking ages are not effective mechanisms for reducing alcohol-related highway crashes.

The question is: "Is it appropriate?" Denying the legal drinking privilege to 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old adults is not only ineffectual; it is not an appropriate social response to the Nation's alcohol abuse or highway safety problems. If it is not unconstitutional to deny the legal drinking privilege to this adult minority for no compelling public purpose, it is unquestionably contrary to our principles of justice and equality to deny any adult privilege to a particular adult minority on the grounds that some members of that minority may abuse the privilege.

We of the National Licensed Beverage Association urge you to reject this useless and unnecessary assault on the privileges of our Nation's young adults and to focus instead on more effective and more appropriate mechanisms for preventing alcohol abuse among our young people and reducing the incidence of alcohol-related highway crashes on our Nation's highways. And in that we stand ready to help, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to submit for the record my response to Senator Packwood and Dr. Williams' criticism of the Blaney Institute study. It would have helped had he read the study.

Thank you very much.

[Testimony resumes on p. 175.]

[Attachments to Mr. Birkley's prepared statement follow:]

STATEMENT
OF THE

NATIONAL LICENSED BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, TRANSPORTATION AND TOURISM
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
ON H.R. 3870
OCTOBER 4,

1983

Adolescent and adult alcohol abuse is the nation's number one

health and social problem as it is in most of the industrialized nations of the world. It is also one of the most frequently studied and heavily researched areas of human behavior.

In the past decade, hundreds of scientific investigators for the
world's most prestigious institutions of higher learning, social,
medical, and behavioral research, the National Institutes for Health,
the World Health Organization and many others have conducted
extensive studies of adolescent drinking patterns and behaviors
in the fifty United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, Australia,
Japan and the Soviet Union. The findings and conclusions presented
in these many different studies are remarkably consistent; and,
consistently at odds with the popular notion that raising the legal
drinking age can, or will effect any reduction in youthful alcohol
abuse. Indeed, the evidence strongly indicates that raising the
legal drinking age is likely to result in more, rather than less,
alcohol abuse among the underage population, as it did in at least
three of the eight states which have recently raised their legal
drinking ages and for which sufficient consistent data have been
analyzed.

Just as officials in those states have been perplexed by the negative consequences of their actions, the public generally finds it difficult to understand how legally restricting the sale, purchase, use and possession of alcohol could result in more alcohol abuse among those to whom the restrictions apply. Given an understanding of the causes, effects, nature and extent of adolescent drinking and youthful alcohol abuse, and an understanding of the functions and limitations of formal social policies (laws) in controlling these widespread social behaviors, the answers seem almost embarrassingly obvious.

Drinking is essentially a learned, adult social behavior. Young
people learn about drinking as they learn about table manners
and other adult behaviors; by observation, imitation and experimentation.
Interviews with first and second graders reveal that they know

a good deal about drinking and its effects on others, and they
have opinions about why, where, when, how and how much people
should drink. By age thirteen, most young people have had their
first drink, usually at home with their parents and families, on
2
holidays and special occasions."

Sociologists have found that where drinking is a normative aspect of adult social behavior, the onset of social drinking outside the home is a normative aspect of the transition from childhood to adulthood. In their historic study of this transition-marking behavior, Jessor and Jessor found that, by measuring normal developmental shifts in attitudes toward independence, achievement, religiousity, authority, peers and parents, one can predict when an adolescent is ready to make the transition; to begin experimenting with adult 3 drinking behaviors.

The Jessors found, as many others have, that whatever the legal drinking age may be, the effective drinking age; the age at which most young people begin drinking in social settings outside the

4

home, is sixteen. Among American high school students less

than fifteen percent of the freshmen, but more than fifty percent

of the sophmores (52%), seventy percent of the juniors (73%) and
eighty percent of the seniors (80%) drink in social settings outside
5
the home.

community within the same state.

6

The percent who drink and level of drinking activity among adolescents varies from state-to-state and from community-toResearchers have found that differences in adolescent drinking patterns do reflect and parallel those of adults in the same communities. Citing numerous studies on the subject, the Research Triangle Institute recently reported that adolescent drinking is "directly related to parents' and peers' attitudes toward drinking and drinking practices" and "parental attitudes toward drinking are the best predictors of adolescent „7 drinking." Nationwide surveys of social attitudes and drinking practices conducted since the repeal of prohibition reveal that adolescent and adult drinking have been increasing at a relatively 8 steady rate and statistically parallel since 1933.

9

In the early 1970's, concurrent with reduction of the legal age
in twenty eight states, there was a significant increase in the
number of highway crashes, crimes and disturbances involving
teenage drinkers. Analysis of these disturbing increases reveal
that they were not the result of changing drinking patterns among
teenagers, but the result instead of a teenage population explosion
which began, in 1970-71, as drinking ages were lowered and subsided
10
seven years later, as drinking ages were being raised." The increases

and decreases in teenage drinking occurrences, attributed by some
to lowering and raising the legal drinking age, were generally
within the range attributable solely to changes in the numbers
11
of teenagers. Analysis of several hundred studies done in the
past twenty years reveals no significant differences in adolesscent
drinking with or among the fifty states due to differences in the

As researchers for the National Institutes and World Health Organization have discovered, where alcohol is readily and widely available

to adults, it is not difficult for most underage drinkers to obtain; and, where young people are denied legal access, they obtain it illegally through cooperative third parties, parents, older-looking